A Gardner
Being with Ourselves,
Being with the World
Acceptance of the fullness of what we are brings us into intimacy, not only with the marvels of what we are within our skin, but also melts the sense of separation that we experience in relation to our world. The way that we are with ourselves seems to be the same way that we are with the world. As we relax the mind's grip on our experience, and allow the old sense of the world as an objective place outside of our skin to soften or fall away, we find the world to be something quite other than it seemed. At this point the world is who we Are, and how we feel about it, and what we do in relation to it, is exactly the same as how we feel and what we do with and about ourselves. Are we dissatified with the way that the world around us is behaving? The weather, the politics, our jobs, our families....you name it? Are we making assumptions about whatever is going on being the wrong stuff? Are we making the same assumptions about our own humanness, our personality quirks and compulsive urges? Is there another way to be with both ourselves and the world, that accepts what is here fully? Yes. This way is natural and can be found simply by turning away from mind's incessant noisemaking; not necessarily silencing it, just not paying attention, and seeing what is also already There. Does accepting our own tendency to be greedy or angry or judgemental and loving ourselves without needing to fix or change what is, just as we are, have any relation to the world that we experience? As we hold lovingly all of our internal hard places, and relax mind's internal war of good over evil, what is there then? As the walls of separation fall, Love crosses the old barriers, and we and Love enter the world together, as the World. We then find that we live in a Holy place wherever we are, no exceptions. Living then, in this Holy place, what avenues are NOT open to us each moment, to love, to heal, to uplift? Each moment's opportunity then is nothing but World healing itself, loving itself, uplifting itself, each moment knowing what to do...
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Deciduous
Though at times it seems
that much of the world stands
with old man Pine, unchanging
but for incremental growth,
Yet there is something here
that seems deciduous in nature. When autumn comes to
each old pattern of habit
revealing what is encrusted and un-free
Then there is leaf-fall.
Bare branches exposed
to meet whatever weather may come
yet then leaning
inexorably back into leaf
as simple completion. Let philosophers argue what they will
The fullness of leaf,
the bare branch
Both are together here,
intertwined like lovers.
Each barren nub after leaf-fall
containing the fullness of renewed leaf.
Each leaf containing its own return to non-existence. What season is this?
Where each moment
there is a parting from
and a joining again with
the life of this earthen body?
Aliveness, naturally filling body
From the barren and leafless nub
With a free-flowing life blood.
Expanding it once again,
each moment, into leaf.
which then each moment
also falls.
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